The Gamble at Lone Pine
by DWblot
Summary: A world where blood and speed is everything. A web of lies, deceit, fury, passion and family honour has been spun, even as history repeats itself. The racing world will never be the same again. Are you ready to gamble? SxS.
1. Chapter 1

**A world where blood and speed is everything. A web of lies, deceit, fury, passion and family honour has been spun, even as history repeats itself. The racing world will never be the same again. Are you ready to gamble? SxS.**

**A/N**

**Yes, I've put up another story. Yes, I know I haven't updated in a while. Yes, I know you hate me for it. But come on!!!!!!**

**I have no net connection as of now (The 8th of March) and I haven't received the next chapters from my betas anyway.They're still working on it. So really, NOT MY FAULT, PEOPLE!!!!**

**But as I've told you half a dozen times already, I am _not_ going to abandon my fics. I _will _complete them all. This one, I've been working on for a while. It's going to be an octalogy and it's based, almost completely on 'True Betrayals' by Nora Roberts. And I've been longing to try my hand at a CCS version. So if anyone finds a hell of a lot of similarities between the two texts, READ THIS BLEEDING DISCLAIMER BEFORE YOU START FLAMING!**

**DISCLAIMER**

**True Betrayals does not belong to me. I wish it did. I'd like Gabe Slater for my birthday. But unfortunately, I doubt that's going to happen.**

**And CCS belongs to CLAMP. So there!**

**So here goes. Read and Review!!!!!!!! Pleaseeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**The Gamble at Lone Pine -chapter one**

**The Letter**

23 year old Sakura Kinomoto yawned as she stretched luxuriously in the kitchen.Sleepy emarald eyes blinked as the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans and buttered toast filled the air.

"Morning Dad! Morning Chiyoe!" She sang. Professor Fujitaka Kinomoto smiled, his eyes twinkling as he looked up from his morning newspaper, even as his wife, Chiyoe Kinomoto nodded cheerfully at her over her cup of oolong.

Chiyoe, a petite bright faced young woman had married Fujitaka just 3 years back, nearly 15 years after the death of his first wife, Nadeshiko.

Chiyoe herself had been a divorcee when she had first met Professor Kinomoto, regarding the scholarship exam her son, Touya, from her first marriage had wanted to take.

To risk a cliché, it had begun over a cup of coffee.

"Good morning Sakura" He greeted her with a kiss. "It's good to have you home, honey. Can I drive you into town today?"

"I'll get back to you on that" Sakura promised. 'Hmmm..Coffee or juice? Might as well go the healthy way' She chewed meditatively on a piece of buttered toast before moving to grab the carton of orange juice from the table and drink straight from it, while flashing a puppy dog look at Chiyoe who sighed and shook her head before sipping her tea delicately.

Touya Kinomoto slouched into the room, yawning widely. "I've got loads to do today." He grumbled.

"Hey, kaijuu, check the mail"

"No way! That's your job!" Sakura said indignantly as she glared at her older stepbrother.

Touya shot her a glare.

"It was yours to start off with. If you hadn't married that loser, you'd still be stuck with it. And as of yesterday's phone call, the divorce was final. So welcome back, monster."

There was an uncomfortable silence as Fujitaka glanced shiftily at his daughter.

She had refused to talk about the failure of her marrige and now Touya had tactlessly brought it up.

However, Sakura only glared at her step brother before stomping off to the door.

"Was that really necessary, Touya?" Chiyoe asked wearily. "You know Sakura's still hurting over it."

Touya pursed up her lips.

"She has to begin to deal with it, mother." He said firmly. "Her ex was a bastard and a worm. I want her to move past it, stop living in the what if's. And Im going to do everything I can to make sure she realises that."

Chiyoe's eyes followed her son's broad shoulders as he strode out of the room, a plate of bacon in his hands.

Fujitaka only sighed.

When she pulled the stack of letters from her mailbox, Sakura had no warning that one of them would change her life forever. The creamy stationery, the neatly penned address and name in crisp black Indian ink seemed ordinary enough. Though the postmarked place wasn't well known to her.

As far as she knew, Tomoeda was countryside. A fresh expanse of land with few local residents and even fewer visitors.

Sakura hummed as she stacked the letter with the others on the old cherrywood table under the window in one of her favourite rooms in the house, while she slipped out of her shoes.

She moved over to the cupboard and grabbed a can of coke from its well stocked shelves. Flicking the can open, she sipped the frothy drink slowly as she sorted through the mail.

'Bills, bills, junk, junk, bills, more junk.." She trailed off as her eyes took in the yellow package from her attorney.

In spite of all the time, in spite of all the pep talks and the heavy doles of late night talks with her best friend, Tomoyo….In spite of all she had told herself and all the nights she had cursed herself and her marriage and her impulsive nature viciously, it still shook her.

She had been expecting it ever since her attorney's phone call the night before and logically, she knew that it was only a formality. Her marriage to Ochi, Jin had been over for two years.

But the finality of the whole thing had struck home with the packet. The packet she knew contained her divorce decree. The legal paper that would change her from Sakura Ochi, wife of the heir to the Ochi Industry fame and money, back to Sakura Kinomoto. Single, divorced, hurt and alone.

What hurt her, was that the reminder of what should have been a happy secure marriage still had the power to hurt her. More accurately, the reminder of Jin Ochi still had the power to hurt her.

She had analysed every aspect of her marriage. The first meeting, the dates, the proposal, thae wedding and the life after. She had spent nearly all of the two years after her separation doing just that.

Logically, she knew her marriage had been over for a long while. Closure should have come with the seperation. But then, logic never had worked for Sakura the way it seemed to work for everybody else.

It was only that this paper that she had battled for, with her family as well as Jin, made it all so final, so much more so than the shock and tears, the hell raising arguments with her grandfather and the bitter words with Jin, the separation, the lawyers' fees and legalities, the support from her father and Chiyoe and Tomoyo and Touya, who had never liked Jin much anyway

'Till death do us part indeed', she scoffed, closing her eyes as she sipped the fizzy drink. What a piece of bullshit. If that were true she'd be dead at twenty three. And she was alive—alive and well, in physical terms, at least; and back in the murky waters of the singles pool .

"You ought to be thanking your stars" Tomoyo had scolded her after a particularly hard day, hours after discovering from a close friend that Jin was dating again.

"At least, you found out how much of a bastard he was before you could go on to kids. That would have been a nightmare. It's for the best, Sakura. That bastard wasn't good enough for you. You'll find someone who will be. I promise you."

Tomoyo had certainly held up to her word. Double dates, blind dates, coffee dates, dinner dates, surprise picnics with shy blushing young men, casual introductions followed by pushy moves by Tomoyo and her friends to 'go for it', endless lists of telephone numbers, more bars in 3 months than she had seen in all her life.

And as far as the men she had been flung at were concerned…

She shuddered at the thought.

Her thoughts turned once more to the man she had once thought she would end up spending the rest of her life with.

Jin Ochi.

In all probability, he was sipping champagne, celebrating his freedom with his newest fling, unless he was still seeing Miss. Impossible Bustline; the pouty lipped blonde who screamed plastic, the one she had caught him with that night and the one who, he had claimed had nothing to do with his marriage or herself.

'Funny', Sakura thought to herself bitterly, Funny she hadn't quite thought of it that way. But then, she had only been his wife.

Maybe she didn't feel as though she'd had to die, or kill Jin, in order to part, but she'd taken the rest of her marriage vows seriously, no matter what Tomoyo had said about not thinking of it as a bond to a man she would one day bury, but merely as her first marriage.

It had come naturally enough to her. Marriage was a commitment. Marriage was truth. And forsaking all others had been at the top of the list.

No, she felt the glossy, red lipped, busty young woman she had found cozied up naked with her equally bare husband one night at Tokyo had everything to do with her.

Funny, really.

Second chances weren't for her and none had been given. His slip, as Jin had termed it, much to her fury, was never to be repeated. Her foolishness was never to be repeated. She had moved out of their lovely fairy tale town house in Heishi, North Japan that very night, leaving behind everything they had accumulated during the marriage. The furniture, the knick knacks, the photographs and the memories. At least, she had tried to leave the memories behind. They haunted her at night.

It had been humiliating to run home to her father and stepmother, but there had been no other way she could see. Her love for Jin had been slapped right out of her at the first sight of him and the blonde slut curled up together.

It hadn't been love that she had a problem with, as far as letting so was concerned. It was the image of herself.

She doubted the images of that night would ever completely leave her, would ever allow them to be forgotten.

Every single detail, from the slightly musty scent of the elevator that led up to Jin's rooms to the bright garish red bed was imprinted in her memory. She had intended to surprise her husband by spending the weekend leg of Jin's business trip with him.

'Surprise indeed', she thought with a sneer. Well, there'd definitely been three very surprised people when she'd walked into that suite with a bag and the foolish notion of spending some time with the man she had married. She had moved to their mansion the very same night and had been given back her old room.

She grimaced at the memories returned.

Perhaps she was rigid, unforgiving, unshakeable, unmoving, uncompromising, hard-hearted, all the things Jin and even her grandfather had accused her of being when she'd refused to budge on her demand for a divorce. But, as Sakura assured herself, she was also right.

She ran a hand through her auburn curls, rumpling up the bangs that fell on her forehead, as she walked back into the living room of the immaculate house. Chiyoe definitely had worked on it. The place spoke of a warmth she hadn't felt elsewhere. The brass doorknobs gleamed on the brown oak doors of the old fashioned library that opened off what she liked to call the morning room.

A clean break. That was what she had wanted, that was what she had gotten. She hadn't pleased too many people with her decisions, though, she thought ruefully.

Her grandfather on one hand hadn't been delighted. The harsh words and the exchanges with Jin had almost been less painful.

Stalling, she looked over her rather impressive collection of classical music CD's, frowning as she thumbed through the rack before selecting a Beethoven' Golden Moments disc, which she proceeded to insert into the CD player. Moments later, the lilting melodic tunes of Beethoven's 5th symphony soothed her harried nerves and made her sigh.

Her love for the classics had been passed down from her father, a skilled pianist himself who loved the compositions of the old masters and had taught her to appreciate the same. Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Debussy-she could identify their compositions with ease while her friends were still shreiking over Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. He had also been the one who had insisted on piano lessons for her. Though she had caught on quickly, it had never really become a passion.

Most days, she sat at the grand piano, composing and playing pieces just for herself. And that had only been one of the things she had been interested in. As a matter of fact, Sakura knew she'd been in danger of becoming a professional student before she'd taken her first serious job with Karthiako Inc, a firm that dealt with releif efforts and wildlife in Rwanda, Botswana and several other African countries. Disillusionment had been the chief motive for quitting in 3 weeks. 6 months later, she had found a job with Fujiwara Adverts Limited.

Even then she'd been compelled to take classes, at every chance she got, almost obsessively, in subjects ranging from archeology, her father's own area of expertise, to designing. Her urge to devour the world whole forcing her to swallow, barely chewing, to grab greedily at everything she could. Jin had found it rather amusing and quite intriguing and had laughed at her constant shuffling from interest to interest, job to job.

Resigning from Fujiwara had been an easy decision to make, despite the promotion she had been offered. Between her own trust fund and Jin's income, not to mention his inheritance, she hadn't needed a job. And somehow, the thought of remodeling the house held an appeal she couldn't rid her mind of.

Endless hours of scraping paint off the walls, choosing new colours and hunting almost maniacally in ancient little shops for just the right piece for just the right spot-knick knacks, rugs, bookcases and pictures, later, she remembered the pride she had felt at the sight of the Heishi house. Her home.

It had been a testament to her unique taste and efforts and the showplace of North Japan.

Now it was simply an asset that had been assessed for its worth by bickering lawyers and accountants and assorted professionals and split between them. Just like everything else,except for the cat, Dessie, a wedding present of sorts from Jin's ageing aunt whose prize Persian had given birth a week before the wedding. Jin hadn't wanted her. And Sakura had only been too eager to take the affectionate cat back home.

The decision to return to school had been hers and her father had only been too eager to enroll her in classes and courses that filled her days and nights and allowed her to keep the real world at bay. The lessons helped her forget her disappointments and her old life. The classes became her life.

A hold that she desperately clung to, terrified to let go.

The fact that her paternal grandfather's trust fund ensured that she did not have to work, allowed her to sway from interest to next fleeting interest without worrying about future plans.

It's almost as though she's searching desperately for something, yet secretly terrified of actually finding it." Her teacher had once observed.

If Sakura had heard that, she would have scoffed.

So, she was an independent woman. What of it? Young, she fingered her palm thoughtfully; Single, she smiled, qualified to do a little of everything and a lot of nothing. So she was a Jenny of all trades. That wasn't exactly a bad thing, was it? Marriage really wasn't all that it was hyped up to be. Right?

She blew out her breath and approached the mail laden table. She tapped her fingers against the yellow packet.

'It's over' She told herself. 'You wanted it. It's done. It's over'.

She fingered the cover. Her fingers twitched as she ran her hands over it.

'Well, it's not like I have to open it now' She told herself, resolutely ignoring the little voice that hissed '_coward'_ inside her head.

Instead she picked up another mail. A cream coloured envelope with her name and address written in a bright, somehow familiar looking loopy hand.

She turned the envelope over. There was no name at the back, no clue as to who it had come from.

Rather curiously now, Sakura slit open the envelope and drew the thin sheet of cream paper from within.The first thing she noticed was the white horse emblazoned at the bottom. The name 'Lone Pine' in curved letters round its hooves.

She stared for a moment, fascinated at the proud tilt of the horse's head and the power reflected by its sleek body and tossing mane, before beginning to read the letter itself.

**_Dear Sakura,_**

**_I realize this letter might come as a surprise to you. _**

Her gaze drifted downwards, the vague curiosity turning to disbelief, switching to shock and then expanding into something akin to fear.

It was an invitation from a woman she had been told was dead. A woman who had supposedly died when Sakura was 5. A woman she had called her mother.

The paper slipped from her hands and fell soundlessly to the floor. Sakura dropped to the floor, grabbing the letter and holding onto it with shaking hands, scanning it desperately again, almost as though the words would have changed, morphed into an ordinary letter from a happy friend vacationing in the islands.

Deceptively innocent looking words peered right back at her. Sakura sat back on her knees, staring at the letter for many moments after the words ceased to make sense and merely faded into black swirls and curves on cream paper.

**OoOoOOoOOoOooOoOOoOOooOooOOoOOoO**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- Yup. I'm back with the next chapter. Had a lotta problems with my computer. I've switched to Win XP now. **

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**Chapter 2**

Chiyoe sighed as she sipped her tea daintily. It's warm fragrance curled comfortingly around her as she closed her eyes and savoured the taste.

"You seem far away" Fujitaka Kinomoto murmured as he cast a sad smile at his wife of three years. "May I ask what occupies your mind so early in the morning?"

"I was merely reflecting on the years, Fujitaka." Chiyoe smiled. The pink rosebud patterned china clinked as she set her cup down. "The last three years, especially."

A light frown marred her husband's features as he folded up his newspapers and placed them on a side table.

"There is something I have wanted to ask you for a long time now, Chiyoe."

"Yes, Fujitaka?"

He took a deep breath. "I must know this. It has been worrying me, of late. Has..Have you..do you regret this? Becoming my wife? Both of us know the conditions were not ideal. I, myself understand that.."

"Fujitaka." Chiyoe's soft voice interrupted his rambling and he looked up nervously.

"I do not regret this in the least."

He returned her rather watery smile as she leaned over to grasp his hand.

"We may not be lovers, Fujitaka. But we are, I hope, friends."

He smiled warmly.

"You will always be my friend, Chiyoe." He said quietly. "I have a great many things I must thank you for. Touya is like the son I never had and you have been …very good to my daughter. I can ask for no more."

Chiyoe smiled sadly. She started to say something when a door banged somewhere along the corridoor. She frowned as she heard the clatter of uneven steps as someone raced down the passage.

"What on earth.." Fujitaka murmured, rising from the chair. He pushed his chair backwards, moving away from the table. Seconds later a furious girl pushed open the door, slamming it behind her in her rage as she grasped the wall for support, her face almost hidden under a mass of auburn curls that cascaded down her forehead and back..

"Sakura?" Chiyoe frowned. She rose from the table, moving towards the girl she had grown to care about quite a bit in the last three years.

"You're upset. " Her frown turned even more pronounced. "Is it Jin again? Sakura, I know divorce is unpleasant. But it's no reason to be so volatile. "

Sakura raised red rimmed eyes to her and Chiyoe's mouth dropped.

Fujitaka looked distressed as he stepped towards his daughter, in an attempt to find out what was wrong. Her words stopped him in his tracks.

"Why?"

"Sakura?" He stared at her, puzzled. " Why what?"

"What's wrong?" Chiyoe echoed his bewilderment.

Sakura only spoke two words, but they were enough to turn his life upside down, sending him, pale, shocked and limp, crashing back down to his seat.

"She's alive"

"Sakura.." He whispered.

"She's alive!" Sakura cried. "She's been alive, all this time and you've lied to me all my life!"

Chiyoe turned pale.

"Sakura, what are you talking about?" She sounded panicked, pleading.

Sakura raised her tear streaked face to her stepmother.

"My mother's alive." She whispered. "She's alive."

Pain raced through Fujitaka, keen as a scalpel. "Where did you get an idea like that?" He asked in a low voice.

"From her" Sakura's tone was bitter and still pulsing with fury. "I heard it from her."

Only then did he catch sight of the creamy sheet she held in her hands and he was unable to hold back the fear and shock in his voice.

"Sakura, what is..?

"A letter." His daughter's voice shook with shock and betrayal.

"A letter from my mother."

Fujitak raised a hand to his forehead.

"May I?" He whispered, gesturing weakly towards the sheet.

"Is my mother dead?" It was almost a challenge and Fujitaka bit his lower lip to keep it from trembling.

He wavered, holding the lie as close to his heart as he held his daughter. It was a closely guarded secret he had kept for fifteen years. But he knew, as much as he wished it could be otherwise, he knew with a certainity that was shockingly powerful and almost numbing to him, that if he kept one, he would lose the other

"No." His final response was quiet, almost controlled.

"Just like that." The tears swam dangerously close to the surface. "Just a no? After all this time, all the lies? All these years?"

Only one lie, he thought painfully, and not nearly enough time. "I'll do my best to explain it all to you, Sakura. But I'd like to see the letter."

He watched, almost detatched, as she flung the paper onto the table with trembling hands.

His own shook as he clutched at the paper, raising it to his eyes, while another hand fumbled with the silver rimmed spectacles on his nose.

The paper shook so in Fujitaka's hand that he was forced to set the sheet back on the table in front of him. The handwriting was unmistakable. Dreaded. He read it carefully, word by word.

_Dear Sakura,_

_I realize this letter might come as a surprise to you. It seemed unwise, or at least unfair, to contact you before this, for reasons that you will soon know. Perhaps a phone call might have been more personal. However, it was my belief that you would need time. And a letter gives you more of a choice on your options. Something that you were deprived of in the beginning._

_They will have told you I died when you were very young. In some ways, I suppose it was true, and I agreed with the decision to spare you the pain and the problems that would have arisen with the knowledge of the truth over time, not merely in the beginning. Over fifteen years have passed, and you're no longer a child, but a strong capable woman. I do not have the right to be proud of your accomplishments, since I was absent for the greater part of your life. However, I do rejoice in them._

_You have, I believe, the right to know that your mother is alive. You will, perhaps, not welcome the news. However, I made the decision to contact you, and I won't regret it._

_If you want to see me, or simply have questions that demand answers that others cannot give you, you will be welcome. My home is at Lone Pine, on the outskirts of Tomoeda. The invitation is an open one. If you decide to accept it, I will be pleased to have you stay as long as it suits you to. If you don't contact me, I'll understand that you don't wish to pursue the relationship. I hope the curiosity that pushed you as a child will tempt you to at least speak with me._

_Yours,_

_Nadeshiko Amamiya Itsuike_

Nadeshiko. Fujitaka closed his eyes. Good God, Nadeshiko.

Nearly sixteen years had passed since he'd last seen her, but he remembered everything about her with ridiculously utter clarity. The scent she'd worn that reminded him of autumn in all its gentle, yet fiery brown splendour, the quick, tinkling, infectious laugh that never failed to turn heads, the dark, uniquely part grey, part mahogany hair that flowed like rain down her back, the sooty eyes and willowy, deceptively fragile looking body.

So clear were his memories that when Fujitaka wearily opened his eyes again he thought he saw her. His heart took one hard, violent leap into his throat that was part fear, part long-suppressed desire.

But it was Sakura, her back ramrod stiff, now facing away from him.

How could he have ever forgotten Nadeshiko? He asked himself, when he had only to look at their daughter to see her?

Chiyoe stood, all but forgotten at the door. A pale figure in her long yellow dress. Fujitaka sighed, sending her a sad glance, before rising and looking to his daughter.

"What do you plan to do?" he asked Sakura, quietly.

"I haven't made a decision." She kept her back to him. "A great deal of it depends on what you tell me."

Fujitaka wished he could go to her, touch her shoulders, turn her round to face him and make her see how hard it was for him to bring up the past.

To make her see he was hurting too, to reassure her that everything would be alright and that he loved her and always would. But she wouldn't welcome him now. He wished he could sit back down, bury his face in his hands.

But that would be weak, and useless. Not as though he had done anything but be useless for the last decade and a half.

More, much more, he wished he could go back sixteen years and do something, anything, to stop fate from running recklessly over his life. To keep Nadeshiko in his arms, where she belonged, to keep their family safe and secure…

But that was impossible.

"It isn't a simple matter, Sakura."

"Lies are usually complicated." She shot back.

She turned then, and his eyes flashed with pain. She looked so much like his Nadeshiko, his own sweet Nade.The bright hair carelessly tumbled, the emarald eyes dark and smouldering, the skin over those long, delicate facial bones flushed luminously with passion. Some women looked their best when their emotions were at a dangerous peak.

Tear streaked or not, she looke beautiful, fiery, ready.

So it had been with Nadeshiko. So it was with her daughter.

"That's what you've done all these years, isn't it?" Sakura continued bitterly. "You've lied to me. Grandfather lied. He lied." Sakura gestured toward the desk where the letter lay. "If that letter hadn't come, you would've continued to lie to me."

"Yes, as long as I continued to think it was best for you."

"Best for me?" Sakura cried out. "How could it be best for me to believe my mother was dead? How can a lie ever be best for anyone?"

"You've always been so sure of right and wrong, Sakura. It's an admirable quality." Fujitaka said softly.

"You're not answering me" Sakura bit out.

"I ask that you give me time, Sakura, only that."

She hesitated, then nodded slightly.

"Even as a child, your ethics were unwavering. So difficult for mere mortals to measure up."

Her eyes kindled. It was close, much too close to what Jin su had accused her of. "So, it's my fault, now?"She asked bitterly.

"No. No." He closed his eyes and rubbed absently at a point in the center of his forehead. "Please understand this, Sakura. None of it was your fault, none of it at all and all of it was because of you."

At this point, Chiyoe spoke up quietly.

"Your father, he had a reason, Sakura. You were the reason, most of it, but you were never the cause of the problems."

Sakura drew a sharp breath, stiffened her spine. "You knew?"

"Yes. I had to tell her before we were married." Her father answered.

" 'Had to tell her,' " Sakura repeated, mockingly. "But not me."

"It was not, I assure you, a decision that I made lightly. That any of us made lightly. Nadeshiko, your…your grandfather, and I all believed it was in your best interest that this deception be made. You were only three, Sakura. Hardly more than a baby."

"That's no excuse" Sakura snapped. "Perhaps, in the beginning. But I've been an adult for some time, 'tou san. I've been married, divorced."

"And the years go by in leaps and bounds." He said softly, pensively. He'd convinced himself that this moment of confrontation would never come. That his life was too staid, too stable to ever take this spinning dip on the roller coaster again. But Nadeshiko, he thought, had never settled for staid.

Neither had Sakura. And now it was time for the truth to emerge.

"I told you, long ago, how it was that I met your mother" He began.

"You were her teacher" Sakura said stiffly.

"Hai. I was. She was beautiful, young, vibrant. I've never really understood why she was attracted to me. It happened quite quickly, really. We were married within six months after we met, much to the displeasure of …her family, mine as well."

"Ji san did not like my mother, then?"

"He did not understand her, perhaps I didn't, enough, either. But I loved her and so we plunged into marriage headfirst. It was too soon. Six months was hardly long enough for either of us to understand how truly opposite we were in nature.

We lived in Sayon. We'd both come from what you'd call privileged backgrounds, but she had a freedom I could never emulate, a life that was a part of her I could never understand. A wildness, a lust for people, for things, for places. And, of course.." He finished, bitterly, "Her horses."

He swallowed and looked away, to ease some of the pain of remembering. "I think it was the horses more than anything else that first came between us. After you were born, she wanted desperately to move back to the farm in Tomoeda.

She wanted you to be raised there, to grow up to love her world as she did. My ambitions and hopes for the future were here. I was working on my doctorate, and even then I had my eye set on becoming the head of the paleantology department here.

For a while we compromised, and I spent what weekends I could spare in Tomoeda. I gave up my plans for a dig in Tunisia. She, somehow, could harly spend a week away from her farm. If it wasn't the Derby, it was the North Races and if it wasn't that, it was the West course. It wasn't enough. It's simplest to say we grew apart."

'Safer to say it' he thought, staring at his ring finger. And certainly less painful. "We decided to divorce. She wanted you in Tomoeda with her. I wanted you here, with me. I neither understood nor cared for the racing crowd she ran with, the gamblers, the jockeys. We fought, bitterly. Now, I think it was more that I didn't want to understand that part of her world. It was different, very different from mine, yes.

But it was also that your mother loved that world, made it her heart and breath and soul and it was hard for me to accept how much more that farm and the horses meant to her that what we had together. But then things got worse."

He let out a deep breath "Then we hired lawyers."

"A custody suit?" Stunned, Sakura gaped at her father. "You fought over me? Over custody?"

"It was an ugly business, unbelievably vile. I hated every moment of it. How two people who had loved each other, had created a child together, could become such mortal enemies, willing, almost despearate to prove that one was a better parent that the other, is a pathetic commentary on human nature." He looked up again, finally, and faced her.

"I'm not proud of it, Sakura, but I believed in my heart that you belonged with me. She was already seeing other men. It was rumored that one of them had ties to organized crime. A woman like Nadeshiko would always attract men. It was as though she was flaunting them, the parties, her lifestyle, daring me and the world to condemn her for doing as she pleased."

"So you won," Sakura said quietly. "You won the suit, and me, then decided to tell me she'd died." She turned away again, facing the window. "People divorced in the seventies, 'tou san. Children coped. There should have been visitation. I should have been allowed to see her."

"She didn't want you to see her. Neither did I."

"Why? Because she ran off with one of her men?" Sakura spat, furiously, turning to face him. Her beautiful luminous emarald eyes shining with a fierce, furious light.

"No." Fujitaka fumbled with a napkin in his hand, twisting it nervously. "It was because she killed one of them, Sakura. Because your mother spent ten years in prison for murder."


End file.
